Bonnie of Evidence (19 page)

Wally fired up his microphone and stepped into the aisle as we eased to a stop in front of the hotel. “The cell service in Wick can be a little spotty.”

Hissing. Razzberries.

“They haven’t constructed enough cell towers yet, and the wind can be a problem.”

“How come no one warned us about that
before
we signed up for the trip?” railed Bernice.

“Because on some days, there’s no problem at all. Tomorrow, it could be just fine.”

“What if it isn’t?” asked Helen. “We’re looking at a lot of empty photo albums here.”

“A couple of suggestions,” he said without skipping a beat. “Pick up a disposable camera in town if you don’t have access to photographic equipment other than your camera-phone. The grocery store across the street might even carry them. And if you need to phone family in the states, buy an international phone card and use the pay phone in the hotel.”

Groans. Grumbles.

“Welcome back to the Stone Age,” groused Dick Teig.

“Pay phone?” puzzled Osmond. “Do they still have pay phones?”

“How can I call home?” fretted Margi as she pined over her blank screen. “All my numbers are on speed dial.”

“Are you telling us you can’t remember your own sister’s phone number?” taunted Dick Stolee.

“I don’t have to remember,” she snapped. “Didn’t you hear me? It’s on
speed
dial.”

Before the invention of the computer chip, people prided themselves on being able to commit dozens of phone numbers to memory, most of which remained lodged in their heads until they died. With the new technology, people program all their numbers into their
phone’s
memory so they can free up space in their brains to remember more critical things, like passwords and Pin numbers.

“How can we prove we’ve found our geocache containers if we can’t take a picture of them?” Tilly called out.

Wally hesitated. “We’ll have to—” He paused again. “Look, we don’t have to deal with that until tomorrow, so let’s put it on a back burner until then. If service gets restored, we won’t have to deal with it at all.”

As Calum lumbered down the stairs to begin offloading luggage, Wally addressed a few housekeeping issues. “Room keys will be available at the front desk when we go in, but the hotel doesn’t employ a lot of staff, so you might have to wait awhile before your luggage appears outside your door. I’m going to switch up the schedule a little to allow you plenty of time to buy your cameras and phone cards, so let’s plan to meet in the lobby in a half-hour to announce the winner of today’s geocaching leg. Dinner’s at six o’clock in the hotel dining room, and downtown stores will be open until nine this evening in case you diehard shoppers want to buy souvenirs. Lucky for us we’re in Wick on a Wednesday when things are bustling. I’m told it’s pretty dead around here the rest of the week.”

_____

The hotel lobby was an unremarkable space with a stone fireplace, threadbare rug, and furniture that might have been purchased from the local resale shop. My guys occupied the tatty armchairs near the windows, hands cradling their cell phones and eyes locked on their screens in the hopes that service would soon be restored. Bernice and Lucille bookended Cameron Dasher on the ledge fronting the fireplace, looking thrilled to have beaten out Dolly by a half-step for the plum seats beside him. Dad sat off in a corner by himself, shoulders slumped, staring at his shoes. Everyone else was scattered around the room in conversational groupings, squirming incessantly to maintain traction on the vinyl upholstery. I’d seated myself strategically across from Bill Gordon, because even though my bottled water theory had been blown to bits, I wasn’t dismissing the idea that he could still be guilty of swiping the dagger. I just needed to isolate him from the crowd for a few minutes so I could do a little investigative probing.

“Is everyone here?” Mom stepped into the center of the room.

“Etienne and Wally are missing,” I advised. “They’re helping the valet staff deliver luggage.” Since the “valet staff” consisted of a one-armed pensioner with a hunched back, bow legs, and one tooth in his head, it seemed the practical thing to do, especially since there was no elevator.

“Well, I can see you’re all as excited to hear today’s results as I am to announce them,” Mom clutched her tabulations in her fist. “So without further ado—”

“Us folks on Team One wanna request a change,” Nana spoke up as she raised a polite hand in the air.

“No changes!” Dolly Pinker decreed. “The rules are set and we’re sticking to them. End of story.”

“Hold it right there.” Stella Gordon narrowed her eyes at Dolly. “The lady wasn’t talking to you, so you can shut your trap.”

“I don’t care who she was talking to. We’re not changing the rules.”

“Bugger that.” The words burst from Bill Gordon’s mouth like sonic booms. He stabbed his finger at Dolly. “My Stella has as much right as anyone else in this room to have her say, so
you
shut
your
trap.”

“Don’t you dare speak to me that way, Bill Gordon. None of us is interested in what you have to say anymore.” Dolly hiked her sleeve to her elbow, baring the colorful bruise on the underside of her forearm. “You see this? It’s here because you were
sooo
cocksure of yourself on that boat yesterday, you nearly got us killed. It’s a hematoma. Do you know how dangerous hematomas are? I could develop a blood clot and die!”

“Gee, that’d be a shame,” Bernice said out the corner of her mouth.

Bill shot a defiant look around the room. “You mean to tell me, this is the thanks I get for trying to save all you people?”

“If you hadn’t been so grabby, you wouldn’t have broken the throttle,” Dolly accused. “And if you hadn’t broken the throttle, we might have been able to stop
before
we hit the damn dock!”

Head-bobbing. Nods of agreement.

“So that’s the way the wind’s blowing, is it?” His face grew ugly. “Ingrates. If it ever happens again, you can just sit there and suffer.”

“We already are.” Alex braced his palms on either side of his jaw and gently turned his head. “My neck is killing me, and if it gets any worse, guess whose butt is going to end up in a sling?”

Oh, God
.

George raised his hand. “What does that mean exactly?”

“It means Alex is going to sue Bill’s ass,” Erik said helpfully.

With order starting to fray around the edges, I made a preemptive move and let fly a piercing whistle that silenced the group like an industrial-size mute button. I didn’t dare wait for Mom to restore order.

She couldn’t whistle worth beans.

“Thank you, Emily,” Mom said when she stopped wincing. She smiled at the crowd. “Maybe you can take up the exciting issue of litigation after I announce the results. But first, the chair recognizes Marion Sippel and her request for a change.”

Dolly tossed her head back and groaned. “Have you heard
nothing
we just—”

“Oh, put a sock in it,” Bernice crabbed at her. “You had your say, now it’s someone else’s turn. Go ahead, Marion.”

Whoa
! Bernice was actually defending Nana’s right to speak? She must really dislike Dolly to compromise her values so much.

“Our team’s decided on a new name,” Nana informed us. “We’re Number One.”

Mom waited expectantly. “I know you’re Team Number One. What’s the new name?”

“We’re Number One,” Nana repeated.

Mom’s smile thinned. “You’ve said that twice already, Mother. Is there something about the question you don’t understand?” Her eyes rounded in sudden alarm. “Oh, no. Have you stopped taking your herbal supplements?”

Nana lowered her eyelids and fixed Mom with a long, unblinking stare. “Don’t make me come over there, Margaret. ‘We’re Number One’
is
the new name.”

“You can’t be number one,” Bernice objected. “We’re in the lead, so
we’re
number one.”

“No you’re not,” said Margi. “You’re Team Number Five.”

“But we’re still first,” Bernice shot back.

“I don’t care what Team Number One calls itself,” fussed Dolly. “We’re still ahead. We’re a lean, mean, searching machine, and it’s our team who’s going to end up saying, ‘We’re number one.’”

“I thought that name was already taken,” said Helen.

“Show of hands,” instructed Osmond. “How many people think—”

“QUIET!”

All eyes riveted on Mom. She might suck at whistling, but she was finding brand-new ways to employ her library skills.

“Here are your results. The times are a little slow today, because some of you are coping with the after-effects of yesterday’s accident, but when your pain and soreness wear off, I’m sure you’ll make up for it.” She smiled broadly. “Imagine a little drumroll here. Okay then. In ascending order, Team Do It or Lose It is on the bottom, followed by Team Two, Team There Is No Dog, Team We’re Number One, and Team Yes We Can.”

Lucille Rassmuson launched herself off the fireplace ledge and executed a full-fledged jump-around, complete with bouncing, jumping, and jiggling. “We won again!” she hooted as she pulled Cameron, Bernice, and Dolly off the ledge to join her. “We won, we won, we won.”

“Don’t get too arrogant,” Bill Gordon grumbled. “We’re in second place and breathing down your necks like a heat-seeking missile. Tomorrow we’ll pull ahead. You just wait and see. I guarantee it.”

“Service is back on!” cried Alice. “I have a signal!”

Cheers. Whoops. Spontaneous keystroking.

So while the gang celebrated this uptick in their fortunes by text messaging the person who was probably sitting beside them, the other guests milled around, commiserating with each other about their inability to remain competitive with Team Five.

And it wasn’t pretty.

I hadn’t realized how banged up they really were until Mom mentioned it, but she’d been spot on. They were dragging themselves around like the walking wounded—limping, stiff-necked, rubbing their backs, massaging their shoulders. I could only imagine what condition I’d be in today if Cameron hadn’t thrown himself on top of me to prevent me from sliding across the deck into the bulwark.

“I need to talk to you,” Bill Gordon said in a raspy voice as he came up beside me. “Not here.” He bobbed his head toward the opposite end of the room. “Over there.”

“You bet.” I could hardly contain my excitement. I didn’t even need to come up with a dopey excuse for wanting to have a conversation with him.
Yes
!

“Can that pinhead really sue me?” he asked when we were out of earshot.

I gave him a withering look. “He has a name.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You know who I mean.”

“The boat company bears full responsibility for damages, so even if
Mr. Hart
decided to sue, I doubt he’d be able to extract any money from you.”

“So he can’t take me for everything I’m worth?”

“I doubt it.”

He exhaled a long breath. “Okay, that … that makes me feel better. My investments haven’t been doing so well lately,” he said in a surprising show of humility, “so the old portfolio has taken a major hit. You could say it’s left me a little cash poor.”

Aha
! Could I pivot to the perfect segue or what? “A lot of people are cash poor right now … which is why we decided to offer our guests free bottled water on the bus instead of making them pay outrageous prices for it elsewhere. Have you had a chance to sample—”

“If Stella knew, she’d have a cow,” he said, cutting me off. “There’s no pleasing that woman. No matter what we have, it’s never enough. I want, I want, I want. Buy, buy, buy. I swear she’s got one aim, and that’s to see me in ruins.”

I waited a beat. “So does that mean you’ve taken advantage of the free water on the bus or not?”

He looked beyond me, his expression turning sour. “Damn.”

“So what are you two discussing over here all by yourselves?” Stella inquired as she joined us.

“Nothing,” he bristled. “I’ve gotta pee.” And with that, he stalked off like a toddler on his way to a time out.

“He does that a lot,” she said dully.

“Storm off ?”

“Pee. It’s one of those prostate things, but it doesn’t stop him from testing out the equipment whenever he finds an opening, if you catch my drift.”

Holy crap.
Was she accusing him of being a serial adulterer?

“So what
were
you two talking about?” she asked, regarding me as if I were a cat with telltale canary feathers sticking out of my mouth.

“
Uhh
… litigation. I think Alex really rattled him, so—”

“Are you a lawyer?”

“No, but—”

“Then why would my husband need to approach you with legal questions?”